


Her Gift

by lily_lovely



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Dark, Gen, Main Character Death, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-08
Updated: 2008-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:19:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_lovely/pseuds/lily_lovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn's thought a lot about death lately, but is she really ready for it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Gift

She's not real.

She's never felt this numb before; not even the time Buffy dared her to jump into the ocean in the middle of January. It had been meant as a joke, but Dawn had done it, just to prove she could. She came out of the water all blue and unfeeling and frozen. Except--

Except that never happened. The memory was fake. Made up.

She wonders how they did it. How the monks made her false memories, the ones that seemed so true.

They appeared too detailed and numerous for the monks to have simply written out every detail of her life. Like it was a pathetic and twisted story book.

There's the time she was grating cheese for dinner and cut her finger; her mom put a Snoopy band-aid on it, and, even though she was way too old for that stuff, she kind of enjoyed it.

There's the time when she was eight that she and Buffy made a big fort out of pillows and couch cushions and, when he got home from work, her dad crawled under with them.

There's all the times Buffy and her mom would fight over who got to read her Dr. Seuss books.

She thinks maybe the monks used some sort of spell, that just let everyone's imagination or brain waves or whatever come up with memories of her.

She wonders if everyone's memories of her are even the same.

She knows she'll never ask.

****

After Spike reads her Giles's journal at the magic shop, telling her that she's not alive, that she's not who she always thought she is, she goes home and slashes open her veins in the kitchen with her mom's best carving knife.

She has to feel something or she knows she'll just fade away.

She learns of the hot, searing pain as the blade goes in, the feeling of her own blood dripping down her wrist, the blooming stain it makes on the kitchen counter.

That's when she gets the taste.

****

She learns what she's made for.

She's seen how crazy people treat her, like a thing instead of a girl.

And now she knows they're right. That maybe they're smart instead of crazy.

Because aside from being a ball of energy, she's a ball of energy that will destroy the universe.

Not a person, not a human. Not a sister or a daughter.

Just something to use, to take care of, to destroy.

She's a duty, an obligation, a chore, a tool.

Everyone's so _concerned_ for her all of a sudden, but still, no one really cares about her. It's all about, "Where's Dawn?" and never "What does Dawn think?" or "How does Dawn feel?"

She thinks about what the general of those weird knights said, that she's a link. That it's the will of God that she's severed.

She's not sure if she believes in God, but a whole army for the purpose of making sure she dies?

Well, that must mean it's pretty important.

****

She wonders idly if a stake would kill her. She wouldn't have the strength to force it through her chest herself, of course, which would make either for some embarrassing splinters or a pretty messy wound.

But could she somehow get Buffy to do it? Buffy plunged wood into vampire chests all the time. She would definitely have the power to do it to Dawn.

 

But she never would.

Dawn imagines disguising herself as a vampire, somehow. Sneaking up on her sister while she's on patrol with plastic fangs, scaring her in the dark, making her act with her instinct and her power, not her brain.

She knows it's a stupid, silly idea, but somehow it appeals to her.

****

She thinks about buying a gun. She's so not old enough to buy one legally, but the thought of just blowing her brains out appeals to her.

Obliteration.

She smirks at the thought of getting Buffy to take her to the gun shop to buy her one. She pictures how her sister would haggle, and ask lots of stupid questions about size, and calibration, and numbers of bullets, while Dawn sat in a corner trying not to puke, staring at some dead cockroach on the floor.

Because of course the gun shop would be completely filthy and disgusting.

Buffy wouldn't find the cockroach gross. She'd probably be the one who killed it in the first place.

But Dawn's not like Buffy.

****

She finds her mom's best carving knife again in Buffy's room, under the bed, while she's looking for a lost sweater.

She wonders why Buffy never put it back on the knife rack in the kitchen. It's not like keeping one of the knives away from Dawn would stop her.

She notices that her blood is still on there, dried and brown. She scrapes at it with a fingernail, and winces at the terrible scratching sound it makes.

She starts keeping it inside the sleeve of her jacket, just in case.

****

She's trapped with Glory in some weird building in Sunnydale. She looks around, and thinks about how she'll never leave here. This state, this town, this place.

Her corpse will rot here.

She asks to go to the bathroom while Glory's Ben-like emotions are tipped in Dawn's favor. She looks in the rusty old mirror and can't believe how dirty and bloody her face is.

She wants to wash it off, but she doesn't know how much time she has.

****

She's dreamed of another way, of diving off a tower into a white-blue portal, shining with sparks and sizzling with lightning. She's imagined pain, then peace.

But that's not her way.

Her way is the knife.

****

She's known she has to do this ever since she found out what will happen if the portal gets opened.

Dawn can't let herself be the cause of the end of the world. Can't let demons and hell-beasts and giant worms and big scary tarantulas devour everybody she knows and loves.

But it's painful to let go of her life. She wants to make real memories with real friends. She wants to save Buffy the pain Dawn's death will bring her. She wants to be selfish and hope for some chance, some way for Buffy to save her like always.

Except she supposes Buffy's never really saved her.

And now she never will.

At least this way, maybe she'll see her mom again.

But while Dawn is positive her mother's in heaven, she's not sure that's where she's going.

****

Dawn thinks of it as her gift.

She's giving something to the world. She's allowing the world to continue to exist. Part of her feels like a benevolent, wise goddess. Part of her feels like a brave martyr.

And part of her feels like a scared little girl, and part of her feels absolutely sick.

At least now she'll be remembered forever as the girl who sacrificed herself for the entire universe. She'll be important much longer than if she were just plain old Dawn, the short, annoying spaz.

So now she knows that death is her gift. She always thought it was Buffy's, with all her slaying, and killing, and coming home covered in icky demon gore.

But Dawn's not killing; she's dying. She's not venting her rage on some hapless vampire; she's giving up her _life_.

Forever.

****

She suddenly realizes how terrible the bathroom smells.

She doesn't want to die here.

She's always seen herself dying in Leisure World, surrounded by other smelly, arthritic old people. Just slipping away silently in her sleep, not having to do anything about it.

And now here she is.

She doesn't want to die here, but she _has_ to die here.

She thinks she can hear Glory saying something about little girls not needing that much time to pee.

She has to do it _now_.

So she takes off her jacket, takes the knife out of where she hid it in her sleeve…

…and plunges.


End file.
